


Living the Dream

by mischiefmanager



Series: Living the Dream [2]
Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Mentioned/Implied Sexual Situations, Rated T for language, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-17 21:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9347192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischiefmanager/pseuds/mischiefmanager
Summary: Philip and Lukas have been through enough. This a series of snippets from their happily ever after. So fluffy it'll rot your teeth right out of your mouth.





	1. The Impulse Visit

Philip shifts his weight from foot to foot, standing next to the baggage claim broadcasting that bags from the 5:00 flight arriving from Atlanta will shortly be falling out of the chute and onto a circular conveyer belt. Philip has never actually been on an airplane before. He’s been to the airport to drop Lukas off, but this is his first experience with the baggage claim area. He watches with fascination as bags start to slide down, momentarily distracted from the escalator where he assumes Lukas will be appearing any minute. The conveyer belt really reminds him of this cool sushi place he went to with Helen once when she drove down to the city as a surprise just to say hello. The sushi was on little different colored plates, according to the price of each item, and he could just pick up plates of whatever he wanted from the conveyer belt as it passed by him.

Apparently that few seconds distraction was too long—a weight collides with him and he’s being kissed hard before he even registers Lukas’s presence, arms around his waist, pulled in close.

“Philip,” Lukas murmurs against his lips, as though he’s trying to convince himself he’s not dreaming. Philip feels like he’s being hit by a truckload of feelings—it’s like he can taste Lukas’s loneliness and homesickness and _lovesickness_ through his kiss. It really makes his heart ache. He misses Lukas a lot while he’s away, but somehow Lukas seems to have it worse. Philip guesses it has to do with being so far away from home and living out of hotels—and not being able to choose who he spends time with. The other guys on the motocross circuit are okay, according to Lukas, but not people who he would hang out with on a regular basis if he had the option. Incidentally, none of them like boys.

Lukas finally pulls back and he looks seconds away from tears again.

“I’m not crying,” he says firmly, glaring at Philip accusingly. Philip tries not to smile. 

“No one said you were,” he replies pleasantly.

“So uh,” Lukas sniffs and looks at the ceiling, “where are we going?” 

“My dorm, my roommate’s visiting his parents,” Philip tells him, spotting Lukas’s bag coming around to them and hoisting it up onto his shoulder. It’s incredibly light—as though Lukas just threw in a change of clothes or something and ran to the airport as soon as he could. Which is probably what happened, Philip reminds himself.

Lukas looks startled by the bag, Philip is positive he would’ve forgotten it if Philip hadn’t remembered. 

“Unless you want to see your dad,” Philip continues, “If you do we can head up to Tivoli, Gabe would probably come get us if I asked.” 

“No,” Lukas shakes his head, “My dad doesn’t even know I’m here. He’d kill me if he knew I blew six hundred bucks on last minute plane tickets.”

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Philip breathes as he whips out his phone and calls an Uber, “Six hundred bucks?!”

“I don’t fuckin’ care,” Lukas says, shaking his head. Philip would offer to pay him back for some of it but he doesn’t even _have_ that much. Lukas has money—not the kind of money that would allow a person to spend six hundred bucks like it’s nothing—but certainly more than Philip.

“Wow, thanks,” Philip smiles at him, “I’m pretty flattered to be honest. Six hundred just to come see me for like twenty hours?”

Lukas doesn’t laugh.

“I can’t keep doing this,” he mutters. 

“Well yeah, you’ll run out of money pretty fast,” Philip says reasonably.

“I don’t mean that,” Lukas mumbles, “I can’t...” He shakes his head and just then, their Uber pulls up.

“Let’s talk about this back at the dorm, okay?” Philip tells him as the driver pops the trunk and Philip throws Lukas’s bag inside. Lukas looks like one word will open the floodgates and Philip knows Lukas is private enough not to want to cry in the back of an Uber.

They get inside and Lukas holds his hand in a vice grip all the way back to school. They are very quiet, Philip wonders if the Uber driver thinks they’re fighting.

Lukas has been to the campus before, but he still looks around almost wistfully—like he wishes he lived here too. It’s funny because Lukas has no artistic talent whatsoever, and Philip really couldn’t care less about motocross. And yet, Lukas so obviously wants to belong in Philip’s world, and Philip would absolutely travel the motocross circuit with Lukas if that were even somewhat feasible.

They run into a guy, Jake, Philip knows from class in the hall while Philip is fishing for his keys.

“Hey Philip,” Jake says, sauntering up to them and openly eyeing Philip. He doesn’t even look at Lukas as he asks “Who’s this?”

Philip smiles blandly at Jake—he _feels_ Lukas stiffen by his side.

“I’m Lukas,” Lukas introduces himself, a little more forcefully than Philip feels is necessary, “I’m his boyfriend.”

“Oh,” says Jake, eyes wide, “You’re real then? We thought Philip was just making you up to keep the flocks of suitors at bay.”

Philip can tell Jake is trying in his weird way to be friendly, but Lukas absolutely isn’t budging. He feels like it’s up to him to defuse the situation, but his mind has gone blank and he can’t even think of a response.

“He wasn’t,” Lukas says shortly. Mercifully, Philip finds his keys, tells Jake he’ll see him later, and pulls Lukas into the room, breaking the staring contest he’s been trying to have with Jake.

“That guy likes you,” Lukas blurts out as soon as the door is closed and locked. He’s standing in the middle of the room as though he’s not sure what to do.

“I know,” Philip tells him with a smile, “He’s told me. I said I was taken.”

Lukas fidgets. Philip sits on the bed and pats the spot next to him, and Lukas sits down numbly. Then he seems to sort of snap out of it, and reaches for the hem of Philip’s shirt. 

“Whoa, slow down,” Philip tells him, “I... think we need to talk first. As much as I just want to spend the whole time having sex. We can totally have sex, it’s just you looked like you were gonna cry at the airport and we should probably like...deal with that before you take my clothes off.”

“Yeah,” Lukas agrees, looking down at the floor. He puts his elbows on his knees and rests his face in his hands. Philip scoots up right next to him and rubs his back. When Lukas speaks, the words are muffled and wet-sounding.

“I can’t be away from you like this,” Lukas tells him, “It’s killing me.”

“I know,” Philip says, “I...” He suddenly feels like crying too. He did enough of that last night, he cried himself to sleep even though he was overjoyed that he and Lukas were back together. Honestly, he hasn’t _not_ cried at least once a day in over three weeks. 

“I haven’t seen another guy who doesn’t want to talk about girls in over two months,” Lukas says quietly.

Ouch. Philip is surrounded by other gay guys every day now, truth be told. There are dozens of them in his department alone. Even when he and Lukas were broken up he had no desire to date any of them—it’s just nice that he doesn’t have to worry about how people will react if they find out or hide it or any of that shit. And nobody even blinks when he talks about his boyfriend. Lukas doesn’t talk about it much, but his impression has been that the motocross guys aren’t much better than the kids back in Tivoli. The idea of going back to living like that makes him feel a little sick.

“I’m sorry,” Philip tells him, and he means it, “that really sucks.”

“I wouldn’t even give a shit if you were there,” Lukas says, still not looking up, “It’d be like Tivoli all over again and I could totally handle it if I was with you.”

“I know,” Philip says, still rubbing his back.

“I just wish you could come with me,” Lukas admits.

“I know,” Philip repeats. 

“Last night, I was like...thinking about you being here and getting hit on,” Lukas continues, “and I’m gone all the fucking time, like it’d be so much easier for you to find— “

“I don’t want to find someone here,” Philip cuts him off, because that’s stupid, “I won’t be in college for the rest of my life. This long-distance thing...it sucks, it _really_ sucks, but it’s not forever. We can—I don’t know. Maybe I could do freelance stuff and then I could go with you sometimes after I graduate.”

“I’m not gonna do motocross forever,” Lukas says, as though he’s just decided it.

“Okay,” Philip says, a little surprised, “You don’t have to, you can— “

“I don’t want to,” Lukas tells him, and he lifts his head out of his hands and nods.

“You don’t mean that,” Philip says, “You love motocross, you’re just...I dunno, lonely. It’ll get better...” Philip’s not sure _how_ it’ll get better, he just feels like it’s the thing to say. 

“No,” Lukas says firmly, and he looks up at Philip with red-rimmed eyes, “I mean it. I like riding my bike but the like...the part where you never live anywhere and have to kiss ass all the time with the sponsors...I don’t want to keep doing that.”

Philip’s not sure what to say. He has no idea what, if anything, Lukas would do other than motocross.

“The idea of just doing the circuit used to sound so awesome,” says Lukas, flopping back on the bed with his legs hanging over the side, “I could just kind of move around and either do long distance with Rose or break up with her and I wouldn’t even care. But then like, you...”

“I don’t want you to give up your dream for me,” Philip tells him, leaning back so that he’s lying next to Lukas and looking him in the eye.

“Well too fucking bad,” Lukas tells him, “I’m living my dream and I hate it because I love you more than any of that stuff.”

Philip feels suddenly like he’s going to cry again. Maybe it would’ve been better if he’d just let Lukas tear his clothes off like he wanted to in the first place. He can’t really see any good outcome to this conversation.

“Look,” he tells Lukas, rolling over so that he’s lying on his side and pressing a hand to Lukas’s chest, feeling the warmth of his skin through his shirt, his heartbeat, “we can do this. We just need to make sure we know when the next time is that we’ll see each other. We’ll plan it better so you don’t have to spend six hundred dollars every time you want to see me—you’re never living that down, by the way.” 

Lukas laughs and Philip feels the tightening in his chest ease up a little.

“Maybe I could even save up and come see some of your races.”

“Yeah?” says Lukas, sitting up a little and smiling, “You think so?” 

“I’ll try,” Philip tells him, “And like...you’ll be back home for Christmas, right? We can spend a month together then.”

“A month together,” Lukas echoes, like it’s going to be his mantra until December.

“Hey,” Philip says, leaning into Lukas until their mouths are inches apart, “I love you. We’re gonna make this work.”

Lukas nods and looks into Philip’s eyes. He wants this to work _so badly_ , and he feels like if they both try hard enough, the universe owes it to them to help them out a little. He must be projecting more confidence than he feels, because Lukas smiles then licks his lips. 

“So, uh...” he says, “remember on the phone last night how you kinda talked about the barn...”

“You mean when we had phone sex?”

“Yeah,” says Lukas.

“What about it?” Philip asks.

“I was thinking we should spend the rest of this trip doing stuff we can talk about on the phone later,” Lukas tells him, slowly moving until Philip is on his back again and Lukas is hovering over him.

“Now we’re living my dream,” Philip says, arching up as Lukas bends down to kiss him.


	2. The Apartment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philip and Lukas get a cheap, tiny apartment together in NYC and it's awesome.

“This is fucking legit, dude,” are the first words Philip hears, before he’s even opened his eyes.

“What’s legit?” he yawns.

“You,” Lukas’s voice says from somewhere over to his right—Philip’s so sleepy it sounds like it’s coming from miles away, “And you like, being right here. In the bed.”

“I’ve been in your bed before,” Philip mumbles. He’s not ready to wake up, but he has a feeling he’s not going to get to go back to sleep.

“Yeah,” says Lukas, his voice inching closer. Philip feels breath on his neck. “But you’ve never been in _our_ bed.” 

Our bed. Philip smiles into his pillow.

“You got me there,” he agrees.

“Damn right I got you,” says Lukas. Definitely not going back to sleep.

Philip turns over to face Lukas and opens his eyes. Lukas is beautifully tousled from sleep—his hair falling all over his face and the pillow. He looks like he was going to try and cuddle up to Philip from behind before Philip turned around. That’s how they’d fallen asleep—Philip somehow always assumed he’d be the little spoon, but it was nice to have confirmation. 

He spares a glance for the room. It’s kind of ludicrously sparse at the moment—just some cardboard boxes spread out on the carpet, a couple trash bags filled with their clothes. Hideous wallpaper left over from the last tenants. The cheapest mattress and bed frame he could find at Ikea.

It’s the best room he’s ever been in, hands down, because it’s _his and Lukas’s bedroom._

“We live together,” he murmurs, because he can’t believe it. This has got to be a dream.

“Yeah,” says Lukas, grinning like a fool, “We do.” 

“And we’re broke as fuck,” Philip laughs.

“Oh yeah,” Lukas agrees cheerfully, “We’re totally screwed.”

Philip has no idea how they’re going to afford even this tiny apartment—they have no savings, and their rent is approximately 110% of their combined income. But as he looks at Lukas beaming at him from the other side of the bed, he can’t bring himself to care.

“Do we have food?” Lukas wonders aloud. 

 “Yeah,” Philip tells him, “I went shopping yesterday. Knockoff Lucky Charms for breakfast?” 

“Sounds dope,” Lukas nods, “Sure you don’t want to break in the bed before we get up?”

He raises his eyebrows at Philip.

“I think we broke in the bed last night,” Philip reminds him, “We might’ve even actually _broken the bed_ , which would suck because we can’t afford a new frame. I thought I heard one of the slats cracking. Can you help me lift up the mattress so I can check?”

“Whatever, dude—it’s all good,” says Lukas, rolling out of bed and walking—naked as the day he was born—into the bathroom. Philip lies back against his pillow and admires the view for a second before joining Lukas in the bathroom.

They brush their teeth over the sink together and the domesticity of it is making Philip feel giddy in a way he’s never experienced before. He thinks back to the first time he and Lukas kissed—if someone had told him then that in five years he would be strolling into their shared kitchen and eating cereal from paper bowls in pajamas with this guy, he would’ve thought they were crazy. Philip’s pretty sure he’d be willing to watch another triple homicide just to end up where he is right now. 

He tells Lukas that while they’re sitting on the floor eating in what will eventually be their living room, because they have no furniture.

“Really?” says Lukas thoughtfully, shoveling more cereal in his mouth, “Yeah, I probably would too. We need a couch, man.”

“Yeah,” Philip agrees—they can make do without chairs and a table for now, but the lack of a couch is going to get problematic really fast. 

As if on cue, his phone buzzes and he motions to Lukas to be quiet for a second before he answers it. 

“Morning, Philip!” Gabe greets, “How’s the new apartment?”

“It’s...” Philip looks around, grasping for adjectives. Awesome? Perfect, because Lukas lives there too? “...empty.”

“Helen and I wanted to get you guys a housewarming gift anyway,” Gabe tells him, “What do you need? End tables? A TV stand?” 

“A couch,” Philip tells him right away.

“Done. We can come pick one out with you this afternoon or you can just go get one and I’ll wire you the money.”

“We’d love to see you,” Philip tells him, “If it’s not too much trouble.”

He definitely wants to see Gabe and Helen, but admittedly he has an ulterior motive for getting Gabe down here. If Gabe actually sees the state of their apartment, he will probably buy them a lot more than a couch. They might get a dining set too—maybe even a coffee maker.

“Tell him we need a PS4,” Lukas calls loudly and Philip shushes him. He can hear Gabe laughing on the other end of the line.

“And a blender!” Lukas adds. Philip puts his hand over the mouthpiece.

“What the hell do we need a blender for?” he asks.

“I dunno,” says Lukas, shrugging, “To blend shit?”

“Shut up,” Philip tells him, smiling, and goes back to Gabe, “Sorry. What time will you guys be here?”

He finishes making plans with Gabe, then hangs up the phone.

“You’re unbelievable,” he tells Lukas, “You know that, right?”

“Oh yeah, you tell me that every day, as in ‘I can’t believe I got so lucky.’”

Philip is so happy he can’t even be annoyed—he just giggles.

“Stop being so fucking adorable,” Lukas says, slurping the milk out of the bottom of his bowl, “Your cereal is getting soggy.”


	3. The Rent Money

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philip and Lukas are low on funds, which is Lukas's fault, so they decide to try asking Bo to spot them for the rent.

Lukas, Philip learns, has no idea how to not spend money.

Philip can make a dollar stretch for days—he’s had to do that dozens of times. In fact, he’s made do with much less than what he and Lukas have. But this is definitely the poorest Lukas has ever been, and it shows. They don’t really argue about money because Lukas always apologizes when he comes home with $75 worth of groceries or a new microwave or whatever else he’s been possessed to buy all of a sudden. It’s not like they can’t get Gabe to spot them for rent when they need it, it’s just...Philip feels bad asking every single month.

“Why don’t we try hitting up _your_ dad for once?” he tells Lukas as he checks their bank accounts and finds them $200 short on rent.

Lukas hesitates. Bo was not exactly pleased about the idea of them “shacking up” together as he’d called it, which kind of hurt because Philip thought he’d basically accepted them, but he has more money than Gabe and Helen and _his son_ is the one who keeps blowing through their disposable income. Which they don’t really have any of. 

“I guess I could ask him,” says Lukas tentatively. He pulls out his phone and dials his dad.

“Hey, Dad,” he starts—Philip can hear the nervousness in his voice— “Philip and I are a little short on rent money this month, I was wondering— “

He stops and purses his lips, Philip can hear his dad talking on the other end, but can’t make out what he’s saying.

“Well yeah, I know you don’t like— “

Lukas stops again and his mouth hangs open for a second, then morphs into a smile.

“Oh my God Dad, seriously? That’s—really? I... I thought it was...Okay. Well, we don’t have money for that either.”

Philip tries to get his attention by getting in front of his face, but Lukas sort of waves him off. 

“You...You’d do that?” Lukas says softly, “Wow, I... Lemme think about it.” 

Philip tries to lean into him to get close enough to hear, but Lukas just gets up and takes the phone into the bathroom, closing the door.

Philip stretches out on the couch and thinks, but by the time Lukas gets back he hasn’t even come up with a single idea as to what that conversation might’ve been about. He asks Lukas immediately.

“What?” says Lukas, “Oh, that. He uh...He said he’d send us the rent money.” 

“Okay, good, but what else do we not have money for?” 

“Nothin’,” Lukas flops down onto the couch in Philip’s lap, “I just didn’t understand something he’d said before.”

Philip is positive he’s lying, but then Lukas starts kissing him and suggests they move into the bedroom, so he ends up completely forgetting to press the issue.


	4. The Anniversary

“Is it kind of weird that we celebrate the anniversary of the murders every year?” Philip asks Lukas over the nice dinner that he’s positive they can’t afford—it’s not really a fancy restaurant but they have to save up for Chinese takeout so this is definitely not in the budget.

“It would be weird if we were celebrating the murders,” Lukas replies, “But we’re celebrating what happened before that.”

“What, when you hit me in the face when I tried to kiss you?” Philip asks with a smile.

Lukas gets all serious all of a sudden. 

“I’m really sorry I did that,” he mumbles. 

“Hey, no,” Philip tells him, grabbing his hand across the table, “I was kidding, I think you’ve more than made it up to me. It’s fine...it was a joke. Lukas.”

“You didn’t deserve that,” says Lukas, not meeting his eye. Why did he even bring it up? 

“Of course not, but like...you think it wasn’t worth it to me? We live together now, it’s...it’s more than I could’ve even dreamed up back then.”

“It’s more than I could’ve dreamed up either,” Lukas agrees. 

After Lukas pays for their meal with money Philip doesn’t know the source of, he suggests they take a walk around the city. Philip’s not really sure what’s going on because aimless walks aren’t something Lukas is in the habit of—that’s more Philip’s thing—but he agrees to it. It soon becomes clear, however, that the walk isn’t aimless and that Lukas has a destination in mind, but what the destination is, Philip couldn’t guess if his life depended on it. 

They end up stopping outside a boarded up building a couple miles from their apartment.

“Isn’t this...Didn’t this used to be that club I tried to take you to once?” Philip asks. 

“Yeah,” Lukas says, shifting his weight back and forth from foot to foot and jamming his hands in his pocket. 

“Huh. I didn’t realize it closed. I never went back there, anyway,” Philip says, leaning against the wall next to the building, “So why are we here?”

“I tried to think of a place that was like, really awesome,” Lukas says, then takes a deep breath, “But I couldn’t come up with anything and then I guess I was thinking about how I kissed you in public for the first time when we were here. Even though I wasn’t being me, it still...”

“Yeah,” Philip smiles at him, “It was awesome. So what, we’re gonna do it in the alley now?”

Lukas laughs.

“No,” he says, “I... this is the first place I ever saw men like, together. When I was waiting for you out here I saw two guys hugging, and two other guys holding hands—it was the first time I realized that there were places where people like us could make a life together.”

Philip’s mouth falls open. He sort of thinks he knows where Lukas might be going with this, but it seems too good to be true. He almost doesn’t dare to hope.

“I brought you here to...to ask you something,” Lukas mumbles. Philip’s pretty sure he hasn’t seen Lukas looking this nervous in over four years.

“Something you couldn’t ask at home?” Philip prods.

“I guess I could’ve,” Lukas admits, “but I— “

“Is it a work thing? Did you decide to quit your job?” Lukas hates his job, but they will probably literally be homeless if he quits.

“No. I... I kind of never thought I’d ask anyone this, to be honest,” Lukas whispers. The list of other things Lukas could be talking about is narrowing, but Philip’s brain is just refusing to believe that he could be this lucky, so he tries again.

“So... What? You want to do something weird in bed?” Philip prompts.

“What? No,” says Lukas quickly, “I’m...I love what we do in bed.”

“So do I,” Philip tells him with a smile.

Lukas shakes his head, takes a big shaky breath, and Philip knows deep down that Lukas is definitely asking what Philip hopes he’s asking.

“Are...are you asking me to marry you?” he blurts out before he can stop himself. It’s going to be really embarrassing if he’s way off and Lukas actually _was_ just screwing up the courage to ask for some kinky sex thing or...or...but he can’t think of anything else it might be. Lukas’s face cracks into a grin and Philip feels like his whole body is melting. It’s cold out, but it’s like he just sunk into a warm bath.

“Yeah,” Lukas breathes, “Will you?”

“Oh my God,” Philip blinks and he grabs Lukas in a hug so tight he’s pretty sure he’s suffocating him, but he couldn’t let up even if he tried. 

“You didn’t answer,” Lukas wheezes, “Don’t leave me hanging, dude.”

“Yeah, of course,” he says, “Yes.”

Lukas pulls back, grinning widely.

“Savage,” he says, and Philip would smack him on the arm for being such a bro if it had been any other moment. As it is, Philip just smiles and laughs and listens to the sound of his own heart beating in his ears, and kisses Lukas so thoroughly that he starts to wonder if they _won’t_ end up doing it in the alley. Lukas is the one to eventually break the kiss, which almost never happens—he grabs Philip’s hand and wordlessly steers them in the direction of their apartment.

“I didn’t get you anything,” Lukas admits, “I’ve never seen you wear rings or anything so I thought you might not want— “

“You thought right,” Philip tells him, and is hit with a sudden pang of sadness because his mom would be _so happy_ for him right now. He can imagine hiding in the bathroom when he gets home and calling his mom to tell her and how excited she’d be...

“Are you sure?” Lukas asks, mistaking the meaning for Philip’s sudden change in demeanor, “I could save up and get you whatever you want. I mean, as long as what you want is less than like fifty— “

“No, I was just thinking about...” Philip breaks off. He really doesn’t want to cry right now—there’s so much to be happy about. He doesn’t want to dwell on his mom because he’s pretty sure this might be the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and he doesn’t want to waste time wishing for things to be different. Lukas catches on and squeezes his hand tighter.

“We can talk about her,” Lukas says, “It’s okay.”

“I don’t want to right now,” Philip admits, and then he remembers Lukas hiding in the bathroom to talk to his dad a few weeks ago, “Is this what you were talking to your dad about when you asked him for rent money?” 

“Yeah,” Lukas says, “He didn’t want to give us rent money because we’re quote ‘living in sin.’ Like, for real. He doesn’t care that you’re a dude, he just wants us to get married because ‘son, you need to do right by Philip,’ can you believe that?”

Philip can’t. He shakes his head in disbelief.

“Right? It’s not like I hadn’t ever thought about it—because I had, like a lot—but we don’t have money for that either—we can barely afford to eat. But my dad said if we got married he’d pay for _everything_ —like the whole wedding and shit.”

Philip hadn’t even thought that far ahead, he assumed they’d just save up for a marriage license and get it signed and witnessed at the courthouse.

“He’s gonna want to do it in Tivoli,” Lukas says.

“I guess that makes sense,” Philip agrees, “I don’t really care where we do it. Holy shit, we’re actually going to get _married_ married, aren’t we? In suits, with like people there. Music. Food...”

“Yeah,” says Lukas, nodding and still smiling, “We actually are.”


	5. The Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The title is pretty self-explanatory. Philip and Lukas tie the knot!

They actually do, and it’s _weird_.

Philip doesn’t know the first thing about wedding planning and neither does Lukas, but Bo has apparently been all over this for years. Lukas’s guess about him wanting to do it in Tivoli is correct, but he can’t find any pastors willing to perform the ceremony (surprise, surprise) so he suggests they do one of those trendy barn weddings and drive someone up from the city to officiate.

They’re standing in the barn at the time, and Philip opens his mouth to—he doesn’t know what. Object? On what grounds? But Lukas steps on his foot and tells his dad that it’s an awesome idea and they’ll totally do it.

“Seriously, here?” Philip hisses in his ear as soon as his dad has turned to go back to the car.

“I panicked, okay?” Lukas whispers back.

“We’re going to get married in the freaking barn where we _blew_ each other? Did you forget that?” Philip replies.

“Are you kidding? It’s the first thing I think of whenever anyone mentions a barn—but I can’t tell him that. What do we do?” Lukas searches his face.

“I guess we get married in the barn.”

So with the location question out of the way, Bo enlists Gabe to help him clean out, decorate, rent chairs (they get these fancy ones with a name that starts with a “c” because apparently chairs have names), send out invitations...Philip and Lukas have nothing to do except give the thumbs up or down every time they get a text with suggestions. They’re also informed that they will be having a catered reception in the barn after the ceremony.

Bo invites all of Lukas’s old motocross teammates from when he was in the circuit, and Lukas has a momentary panic because most of them don’t know he’s gay.

“It’s not like they’re going to find out at the ceremony,” Philip reasons, “It says on the invite that you’re marrying someone named ‘Philip,’ and that we are Bo, Gabe and Helen’s ‘sons’ plural. If they don’t like it, they just won’t go.”

Lukas calms down, and continues down the guest list. It includes classmates from Red Hook High School, people from Philip’s art college and friends of Bo’s—some of whom Lukas doesn’t even know. Philip guesses that’s a thing, parents inviting their friends to weddings, but he can’t deny that it will be awkward to have strangers at their wedding. 

“Is that guy from your college coming?” Lukas asks stiffly when Gabe sends him a finalized guest list from the RSVP’s he received. 

Philip scans the email. “Yup. You mean Jake, right?”

Lukas nods but doesn’t say anything and Philip can _hear_ him thinking about how much he hates Jake.

“Oh come on,” Philip says, whacking him lightly on the arm, “You don’t think coming to my wedding will help drill it in his head that I’m taken?”

Lukas just grumbles a reply, but Philip laughs.

Philip spends the night at Gabe and Helen’s before the wedding, and Lukas sleeps at Bo’s. It’s really strange sleeping without Lukas—they haven’t been apart since before they moved in together and Philip is pretty sure this is the last time he ever wants to do that.

The barn looks “lit up,” as Lukas describes it—it’s got that purposeful “rustic” look to it—things wrapped in brown paper and twine that don’t need to be, shit like that. Rose is there with her husband and their kid—she grins at them and her smile is really infectious. Philip admittedly does a double take at her husband because he could easily be Lukas from behind (Philip gives her a surreptitious thumbs up and she throws her head back and laughs).

Philip remembers so little of the ceremony it’s almost like he wasn’t even there—luckily Bo hired someone to film it so they can watch it later. There was a part where he and Lukas could’ve written some of their own vows, apparently, but it’s a good thing they decided not to because what the officiant ended up saying was sappy enough.

At one point during the ceremony, Philip glances around at the wall next to the barn entrance. They’ve set up a little aisle coming down it with a burlap runner, but all Philip can think about is Lukas up against the wall with Philip on his knees in front of him. He squints at the wall and _swears_ he can see like a streak of white—he wonders if anyone else has noticed it. God, he hopes not.

Lukas catches him looking and his face screws up like he’s trying not to laugh, and Philip has to stare very intently at his shoes for a while or he _will_ laugh.

Later, after they’ve watched the video together, Lukas is quiet for a moment. He turns to Philip, looks into his eyes and says, “I like how you can see the part where we both start thinking about blowjobs.”

They rewind it and watch it again. 

The reception is exhausting. Philip can’t stop fiddling with his wedding band because he’s never worn a ring before and he’s pretty sure it’s going to be noticeable and uncomfortable for the rest of his life. Lukas keeps glancing down at his left hand and turning it around with his thumb, so Philip’s pretty sure he feels the same way. Ten thousand people, or so it feels like, come and talk to them and hug them and tell them congratulations. In fact, everybody gets into an actual line to do that, and by the time they’re done Philip is hungry and tired and ready to go home. He looks at his watch and holds back a sigh when he realizes they’ve still got three more hours to go before they can leave.

A bunch of Lukas’s old motocross teammates are there, and they each brought a girl with them. Some of the girls are clearly sisters or just friends, but it’s hilarious to watch them propel the girls around the room as if to prove to the world that they are not also gay. Jake steps forward when he reaches the front of the line to embrace Philip, but Lukas intercepts him and gives him a needlessly aggressive, bone-crushing hug, thanks him for coming, and kind of guides him away from them so that the next person in the line comes forward to hug Philip. 

There is a meal, but neither Lukas nor Philip get to eat it because everybody wants to talk to them. They cut cake and feed each other a piece, but then get whisked away and by the time they make their way back around to the cake table, the cake is depressingly gone. 

And then there is a band and dancing, and they dance with their dads first, then Philip dances with Helen, then they dance with each other, and by the time everyone goes home Philip is pretty sure he has filled his social quota for the rest of his life and all he wants is to go home and lock himself in his apartment with Lukas until they die. 

He stumbles into Gabe and Helen’s house—they’re way too tired to drive back so they’ll both be spending the night in Philip’s old room.

“We got you something,” says Gabe, and Philip thinks it’s going to be another item to add to the massive pile of presents waiting for them in the barn, but then Gabe pulls two plates of salmon risotto out of the fridge and Philip almost tackles him with joy.

“Thank God,” he says, pulling out a chair and helping himself while Lukas does the same. The salmon probably isn’t as good as it was when it was fresh at the reception, but Philip is honestly way too hungry to care, and he scarfs it down as Gabe and Helen look on in amusement.

“Is there any cake left?” Lukas asks when his plate is clean.

“Traditionally you save the top tier of the cake and then eat it on your anniversary,” Helen explains, “We have it but we were going to put it in the freezer.” 

“Why?” says Lukas, “We didn’t get any cake at the friggin’...thing. Reception. Sorry, I’m tired. Can we just eat it now?” 

The top part of the cake is small enough that Lukas just hacks it in half and they eat the whole thing in one sitting.

Philip thanks Gabe for everything multiple times before they stumble into bed.

“We are not having sex tonight,” Lukas announces after his head hits the pillow. His eyes are already closed. 

“No way,” Philip yawns, and he’s asleep before he can even feel bad about it.


	6. The Jobs, The House, The Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philip and Lukas adulting it up with like work and stuff.

Shortly after their wedding—so soon that they haven’t even finished unpacking all their presents—Philip photographs a wedding for the right person and suddenly he’s booked every weekend through the end of the year and charging three times as much as he was before. It happens so fast that they’ve literally got tens of thousands of dollars in their bank account before one of them suggests they should maybe look into moving into a better neighborhood.

He blinks and they’ve got a two bedroom—an enormous TV, a king-size bed and an amazing view, a fully-stocked fridge, a freakin’ housekeeper who comes and cleans all their stuff once a week, and Lukas quits his crappy job. Philip has never even imagined he would have this much money—he doesn’t know what to spend it on and it just keeps piling up because Lukas is good at spending money, but not so much when it’s “Philip’s money.” Philip explains every time that it’s _their money_ , but Lukas can’t seem to wrap his head around the concept that all money is now their money, regardless of who earned it.

They get a dog about six months after their wedding—some kind of retriever mix that Lukas found at the shelter and dragged Philip down to meet. There wasn’t much convincing needed—Lukas had held his hand in front of the kennel and turned to him with big eyes.

“Dude,” he had said, “We should totally get this dog.”

And Philip couldn’t think of a single reason why not. So they did.

Lukas names her Ellie and they take her up to Tivoli to show her off to their parents. Gabe says she’s great—he also says that she has dental disease and they end up staying an extra day so he can clean her teeth under anesthesia.

“That’s a fine dog, son,” says Bo the next day, patting her and examining her over like she’s a prize-winning pig, “You ever think of taking her hunting? She’s smart, bet she’d be great at fetching ducks.”

Lukas looks at his dad as though he’d just suggested eating her for dinner.

They’re lounging on the couch with Ellie watching their big-ass TV one day when Lukas turns to Philip and says, totally out of the blue, “I think I’d like to open a motocross school.”

“Really?” Philip asks, sitting up, “Is there such a thing as a motocross school?”

“I don’t know,” Lukas shrugs, “But I could like, teach teenagers how to do tricks and shit. I’ve been thinking about what I can do with motocross that doesn’t involve traveling because I’m not doing that again.”

“Yeah, that was like actual hell,” Philip agrees.

“And I want to have a job—I mean, not that it’s not fun to just kind of wait for you to come home and do whatever all day, but I feel bad that you’re the only one making money.”

“I don’t,” Philip tells him, “Doesn’t bother me.”

“Well it bothers me,” Lukas says, “I’ve been thinking about it—I could find a place and we could get a loan— “

“You’d probably need more room than any place you could get in Manhattan,” Philip reasons.

Lukas wrinkles his nose. “Yeah, probably.”

“We could move,” Philip suggests, “Buy a house somewhere outside the city, get a hotel for weekends when I have to be here.”

“I’m coming with you,” Lukas says immediately, “On the weekends. If you’re staying in the city, I’m staying too.”

“Okay,” Philip assures him, “That’s fine. Why don’t you start looking for locations where you can build your ramps or whatever else you need, and once you get that going we can look for houses in the area?”

Lukas turns out to be a lot more adept at this stuff than Philip would’ve guessed. He first enlists the help of one of his old motocross buddies to attach his name to it—the guy ended up being a lot more famous than Lukas because he didn’t quit competing in the middle of a season—and they find a big open area where they build like a huge motocross obstacle course. It’s really cool and Philip amuses himself by imagining seventeen-year-old Lukas’s face if he’d gotten a glimpse of it. 

The area is unfortunately out of delivery range from every good pizza place in the city, but other than that it leaves very little to be desired. Philip and Lukas buy a house close by—it’s only two bedrooms but has a great backyard for Ellie, and that had really been their chief concern. It’s less conveniently located for Philip’s work than their apartment was, but he also can be pickier about the events his photographs because Lukas takes on a bunch of students and starts bringing in income. 

Philip shows up to drop off Lukas’s wallet one day, which he’d forgotten at home. A boy, maybe about thirteen years old, rides up to him, takes off his helmet and shakes his hair out.

“Hey,” he says, “Who are you?”

“I’m Lukas’s husband,” Philip explains.

“Oh,” says the boy, “Do you ride too?”

“No,” Philip draws out the word and shakes his head, “But I have plenty of experience being on the back.”

“Philip, grab a helmet!” Lukas calls, waving him over, “Ian, come here.”

Philip picks up a helmet from a rack nearby, then approaches Lukas’s bike and Lukas gestures for the kid to stand off to the side.

“Ever ridden with a passenger?” Lukas asks him.

The kid, Ian, shakes his head. Lukas beckons to another boy who is standing off to the side.

“Want to practice? I’ll show you how and then you can try it with Henry on the back.” 

“Cool,” says Ian, then fixes his gaze on Lukas and Philip. Henry stands next to Ian.

Philip puts on his helmet, then swings his leg over the back of Lukas’s bike and holds Lukas around the waist. God, it’s been years since they did this—but it feels like it was yesterday. Philip has to fight not to close his eyes. He remembers the first time...Lukas handing him a helmet and licking his lips, and Philip feeling his stomach turn over. He had been positive that Lukas would be able to feel Philip’s heart beating against his back as he held him—he’s sure of it now too.

Lukas takes off and then Philip feels the wind against his skin, the fabric of Lukas’s shirt under his fingers. He’s sure that Lukas is demonstrating some specific technique to the kids watching but since Philip can’t tell what it is, he just focuses on the way he feels, which is pretty damn good. 

They jump over a padded block and Philip remembers before they went into the cabin Lukas jumped over something...a bathtub. Right. He wonders if Lukas did that with him on the back to impress him, not that Lukas needed to further impress him at that point—he was already smitten by then. 

Before he even knows it, Lukas pulls up again next to the kids and takes off his helmet, hair sticking up everywhere. Philip dismounts with some reluctance—he was half hoping Lukas would just take off into the horizon with Philip on the back like they used to when they were teenagers. 

“Okay,” says Lukas, “So did you see what I did differently?” 

“I think so,” Ian replies, brows furrowed.

Lukas launches into a long explanation about balancing and weight distribution, which Philip takes as his cue to leave. He replaces the helmet on the rack and is about to exit when he hears Lukas’s voice. 

“Wait, Philip! Do you have my wallet?” 

Oops. Philip jogs back over to Lukas and hands him his wallet. Lukas thanks him and says he’ll be home for dinner. Fighting one last impulse to get back onto the bike and snuggle up into Lukas, Philip waves goodbye and heads back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the second-to-last chapter!


	7. The Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...and preteen makes three.

It comes up on Philip’s thirty third birthday. Lukas had asked him what he wanted—a big party, a vacation, a huge present—and Philip had sworn up and down that all he wanted was an evening at home with Lukas and Ellie and a spaghetti dinner.

“Helen and Gabe are gonna want to to come,” Lukas warned him.

“Okay, fine—we’ll go see them the next day. I really just want a quiet evening at home with you,” Philip told him for the fiftieth time.

“Are you sure?” Lukas asked. 

“Lukas, I swear to God—ask me again and— “

“Fine, okay, you win! Evening at home. Spaghetti. Gotcha.”

They’re eating the spaghetti and watching the snow fall outside the kitchen window when Philip looks at Lukas and asks, “Have you ever thought at all about kids?”

“Yeah, I deal with kids all day,” says Lukas, twirling spaghetti around his fork.

“No I mean like, us. Having kids.”

Lukas puts down his utensils and looks Philip in the eye.

“Uh, wow. I... Yeah, I mean, sometimes. Why? Do...do you want kids?”

Philip’s been sort of sitting on this for a couple of years, afraid to bring it up—they’ve got such a good thing going and he’s a little worried Lukas won’t want to change it. But on the other hand, they really _do_ have a good thing going and wouldn’t it be great to share it with someone else?

“Do you?” Philip asks.

“I asked you first,” Lukas responds immediately.

“Okay. Yeah. I kind of do,” Philip says, nodding and looking out the window.

“So do I,” Lukas tells him.

Philip looks back at him and they stare at each other for a minute. 

“So that’s it?” Philip blurts out, “We just agreed to have kids.”

“Yeah,” says Lukas, looking confused—like this isn’t really that big a deal and they’ve maybe just agreed on what movie to watch, “Awesome, huh?”

“Yeah,” Philip says, because it is, “How would you feel about fostering?”

“You mean like a baby or teenagers or what?” Lukas asks, then adds, “Either way, yeah—that sounds great. Kinda like coming full circle, right? First Gabe, then you...” 

“That’s what I was thinking,” Philip says.

The process of becoming foster parents takes longer than Philip expected—it’s pretty interesting to experience from the other end because Gabe and Helen went through this and it occurs to Philip for the first time that they probably prepared for months before he came. It gives him a new appreciation for them.

The call that there is someone in need of fostering comes during the workday and Philip and Lukas both cancel their entire afternoons immediately to drive down to the city to meet a twelve-year-old named Jordan Harris. 

Philip sees the panic in Lukas’s eyes when they walk in and Jordan is a girl and he has to fight laughter—he automatically thought _girl_ for some reason when he heard Jordan, but it’s a unisex name and Lukas must have thought _boy_. They learn that Jordan has just lost her mother after a long illness and she had no specific objections to moving to the suburbs, so they were called.

“Which one of you is Philip and which is Lukas?” she asks by way of greeting.

“I’m Philip,” says Philip, giving Lukas a second to recover, “He’s Lukas.”

“Nice to meet you,” she says, throwing her hair over her shoulder, “What school district do you live in?”

“Uh...” says Lukas.

“You mean to tell me you guys decided to foster a kid and don’t even know what school district you live in?” she asks. Philip kind of loves her already—that’s a lot of snark for someone her age.

“That’s the first thing we’ll figure out when we get home then,” Philip says. She narrows her eyes at them. He finds himself desperately hoping that she thinks they’re cool enough to agree to give them a try. The last time he wanted someone to like him this badly was when he met Lukas, which was obviously very different, but he feels like she’s scrutinizing them and he tries to think of the most impressive thing he can tell her about them.

“We have a dog,” he blurts, and he wants to slap himself in the face because he’s sure he sounds really stupid. Her eyebrows raise and he can tell Lukas is silently congratulating him for saying the right thing. Yes!

“I like dogs,” she tells them, “What kind of dog?”

“A retriever,” says Lukas, “She’s getting up there but you wouldn’t know it. She fetches and sh—she, uh, knows how to sit and roll over. She only rolls over when she wants to though...”

 _Shut up, Lukas_ , Philip thinks. _Stop talking._

“Okay,” says Jordan, nodding, “Should we get going?”

She lifts her backpack off the table and Philip wants to do a victory dance. He wonders briefly if Helen and Gabe felt like they’d passed the most important test of their lives when he’d agreed to come home with them. 

They load most of Jordan’s stuff into the back of their car—she comes with a lot more than Philip had when he left for Helen and Gabe’s and she’s packed it all neatly into boxes. Philip remembers bringing his stuff in trash bags. This girl clearly has her shit together.

She actually has way more shit together than Philip and Lukas, Philip learns almost immediately. She tells them they’re not eating enough vegetables the first time she opens their fridge, informs them they should bathe the dog more often, and asks for a bigger bookshelf in her bedroom—all within the first fifteen minutes at their house. 

Within two hours, he’s ordered the bookshelf, figured out what school she goes to, gone grocery shopping to buy food to her specifications, and set up an appointment at the groomers for Ellie. Her bossiness could easily be grating, but she says it all with such a charming air of authority that it only endears her to them more.

“She’s fucking awesome,” Lukas whispers to him in bed after they’ve bid Jordan goodnight, “What do you even do with girls though?”

“What do you mean, ‘what do you do with girls?’” Philip whispers back.

“I haven’t ever lived with a girl,” Lukas says, “Not since my mom died. Does she need like...special shampoo or something? Don’t girls usually have a lot of girl stuff? I didn’t see any makeup.”

“She’s a person, you know that right?” Philip tells him, incredulously, “If she needs shampoo or...or whatever, she’ll probably just tell us.”

She did tell them. Jordan had absolutely no qualms about informing them of exactly what she needed, and the first problem they encountered with her was actually the opposite of a problem. For some reason, Philip had been expecting her to ditch school a lot more often than she did—which was never. Lukas dropped her off every morning, and every afternoon, Philip was astonished to find her outside waiting for him.

“Is she into something worse?” Lukas wondered aloud. They had taken to spending at least half an hour every night worrying aloud to each other about all the awful, terrifying things Jordan could be getting up to.

“I don’t know,” Philip admitted, “She’s really smart. Either she’s not doing anything, or she’s hiding shit from us and we don’t even know.”

It occurred to Philip that maybe he and Lukas didn’t have the most normal adolescence, but the idea that she could just not be getting into any trouble was so foreign to him that her lack of suspicious activity seemed in itself suspicious.

Jordan had visited the counseling office on the first day of school and gotten herself enrolled in all honors classes, somehow. She came home from school every day, excused herself into her bedroom where she presumably did homework for several hours, then joined them for dinner and hung out with them in the living room until bedtime—which she set her-fucking-self for 9:30 every night, except on weekends, when she stayed up until 10:30.

“It’s important to be on a consistent sleep schedule,” she told them when they asked her about it, “You guys stay up until weird hours on the weekends and always complain about how tired you are on Monday—well, that’s why.”

“God I hope she never asks me for help on her homework,” Lukas whispers to Philip one night, “I looked at one of her math books—we _never_ had shit that hard. It was like reading a completely different language.”

But she didn’t ask for help on her homework. Their first real test as parents turned out not to be academic at all.

Philip is working late one night when Lukas calls him at his studio.

“What’s up? Sorry I’m running so late; I just need to finish editing th— “

“No, no Philip—help me,” Lukas pleads.

Philip’s blood runs cold.

“What’s wrong?” he says, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

“I was getting groceries,” Lukas whispers, “And Jordan texted me, and she said she just got her period. Holy shit, what do I do?!”

Philip isn’t sure whether to be angry at Lukas for scaring the shit out of him, or laugh at him for being so clueless.

“Uh...probably buy her some pads?” Philip answers, now trying not to sound too amused.

“I’m in that aisle with all the girl stuff,” Lukas whispers— _Why is he whispering? Who is hiding from?_ — “And there’s like a billion different kinds. What do I do?!”

“Why don’t you text her back and ask her what kind she gets?” Philip suggests. That seems reasonable—he’d had to go get his mom pads before when she was too high to do it herself, it really hadn’t been that difficult—he just looked for the same box he’d seen in the bathroom before and bought that one.

“And tell her I have no idea what I’m doing? No. No fucking way. Not happening,” Lukas says. 

“Okay then, I guess get her a couple different kinds,” Philip tells him.

“Okay,” says Lukas, and he takes a deep breath, “Okay. Thanks. I’ll see you later.” 

Philip tries really, really hard not to laugh when he walks into the bathroom and sees what looks like half the feminine hygiene aisle crammed into the cabinet under the sink. There are nine boxes of pads ranging from light, to heavy, to something seemingly meant for older women with urinary incontinence, six kinds of tampons and something called a cup. Jordan walks in while he’s looking and she seems like she’s fighting laughter too.

“I’m sorry,” Philip whispers to her, hoping Lukas isn’t behind the door listening to them, “I think he just panicked—he’s never— “

Jordan loses the battle against laughter. Her shoulders shake and she giggles silently into her hand, locking eyes with Philip.

“You guys are hilarious,” she gasps, “I never want to leave this house.”

She doesn’t. The adoption process is finalized a year later.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Dawn_Seeker and Jillian_Bowes for beta reading this. 
> 
> I apologize to the world for this fic because it has no plot and no substance but I had to write it because I NEED these guys to be happy, people.


End file.
